


Too heavy

by itzteegan



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Tragedy, Canonical Character Death, Depression, Despair, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Heavy Angst, Loss, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition Quest - Here Lies the Abyss, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:15:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23123101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itzteegan/pseuds/itzteegan
Summary: Anders receives a certain letter from Varric after the siege at Adamant Fortress.
Relationships: Anders/Female Hawke, Anders/Hawke (Dragon Age)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 24





	Too heavy

**Author's Note:**

> I make no apologies. Blame the period hormones on this mess if you want.

Anders sucked in a breath, hands trembling ever so slightly as he scanned the letter he held, as if it would somehow say something different than what he’d read before. The contents didn’t change, however, and he swallowed hard to keep down the contents of his stomach. Looking out into the distance, he rubbed his face and then settled his one hand over his mouth, the shock still washing over him, the numbness tingling through his body as his eyes dropped to the letter and its contents once more.

_Anders,_

This had been the very first indication that something was wrong. Varric loved his nicknames and no matter what, he was only ever “Blondie” to the Dwarf. So for him to address him by Anders, he’d already known something was off.

_I’m a writer, but … shit, I’ve never been good at this sort of thing. As much as I can write a twist or deliver a gut punch via novel, doing it in real life for one of my friends is not exactly something I relish, but here I am. I’m really the only one who can, so … here goes nothing. I hope you’re sitting down for this._

_I don’t know how much Hawke told you before she left, but Corypheus is back. We figure maybe he pulled an Archdemon and just jumped to Larius when we killed him, because you know damn well he was dead. If anything … I guess it was a good thing he didn’t try to jump into you. Either way, you know Hawke, when she feels there’s unfinished business, she won’t let it go. She tracked down Alistair and helped the Inquisitor meet him. Not the first Qunari he’s met, just the first on with horns. Anyway, seems the Wardens were doing something out in the Western Approach and we cornered them at Adamant. They were relying on the history of those walls instead of actually preparing, it seems, because modern trebuchets and siege equipment tore them up like they were my first draft parchments. We found Warden Commander Clarel and through some miracle, the Inquisitor managed to convince her that we didn’t mean harm, that we only wanted to stop the Magister that was trying to lead her astray, that was binding her mages to Corypheus. Of course, that’s when the Magister really overplayed his hand, brought in Corypheus’ little pet, and the second that something like an Archdemon swooped out of the sky, Clarel turned on him. Almost wish you could’ve seen that … and seen the ball of lightning Clarel hit the Magister with when she turned on him._

Anders could only sigh and shake his head, lamenting how the Wardens had fallen. They were to prevent and fight the Blight at all costs, but instead of thinking things through, they had panicked. He wanted to blame them, to say he would have done better, been better, but had he managed to stay with them … he honestly couldn’t have said. How easily a cause could turn someone from their own morals was something he had witnessed himself, its power a rallying call that seemed to deflect all sense or logic. He shuddered to think of himself bound to some blighted creature, once again glad that he had left.

_In the fighting, Clarel slipped away, pursuing the Magister, but we picked up her trail. Too little, too late, unfortunately … the dragon got to her first. In her bid to undo him, her spell crumbled the tower we were all on, and suddenly we were hurtling through the air, falling into an abyss of death and destruction below. And then … we weren’t. The Inquisitor, she managed to open a fade rift underneath us, and we ended up tumbling into the fade._

_The fade, Anders, the bloody fade! The last time Hawke and I had been there we were trying to help Feynriel, but even then we didn’t physically enter it! I don’t know how you or Hawke handle it all the time – and she did say it was different – but shit, I’m kinda glad I’m a Dwarf without any connection to it. The monstrous bogs and nightmares we slogged through was impressive, composed of stuff even I could never think up. At first, I was considering writing a horror series, but … I soon realised I didn’t really want to think about the raw fade that much. While we met the Divine – or a spirit who looked like her … we still aren’t really sure – the nightmare demon haunted our every step, throwing our worst fears at us. I had to keep telling myself that it wasn’t real, even though it was, because if I stopped to think about it for even a second, I would have never started moving again._

_The Inquisitor kept us moving, though, all of us. I don’t know if the anchor affected her perception or if maybe she’s just a better bullshitter than me, but we finally found an exit, a rift that the Wardens had started to open that we could use to leave. Had to fight demons for it, of course, but after we all made a mad dash for the exit. I was step and step with our companions, you should’ve seen how I kept pace with the others, you would’ve been proud. I jumped through the rift, everyone else hot on my tail … or so I thought._

_Hawke … she never came out. Her and the Inquisitor and Warden Alistair, they had gotten caught by a large demon. And, well, you know how she is with unfinished business._

The ink on the parchment had blurred slightly, the otherwise neat and simple letters smudged just so. Not enough so that it was unreadable, but it was noticeable. Anders sat down hard, silent tears making their way down his cheek as he read through the letter again, as if somehow he had read it wrong the first time, or perhaps he’d misunderstood. But no, he’d understood perfectly the first time, even if he hadn’t wanted to accept the truth, the reality.

She was gone.

How long he sat there, gazing at the letter through blurred, unseeing eyes, he couldn’t have said. A lump had settled in his throat, his chest tightening as he tried to process reality. Gone. Just like that. He remembered well the last time they’d seen each other, the memory coming to him unbidden. Her soft, dark skin that he’d reached out and caressed, her piercing jade-like eyes that seemed to bore a hole through him as she told him, as she explained why she couldn’t stay. He’d wanted to fight her, to insist she stay with him, to let others handle their own mess, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Truly, Nymeria was too good for this world, too precious and caring … too good for him.

He hung his head as the tears came in earnest. What was it he’d told her all those years ago? That to love was the rule he would cherish breaking most? He’d never consider that it would be the one thing to end up breaking him. Through everything they’d endured, every trial thrown their way, every obstacle set in their path, they had made survived through it all. And now … now she just wasn’t coming back. She’d left, never to return. Had she known? When she’d received that letter from Varric, had she realised then that she wouldn’t return to him?

_“You worry too much, Anders,” she’d chided him when he voiced his concern, her lips soft against his cheek._

_He’d snorted. “For two apostates on the run, I don’t think I worry enough.”_

_She’d laughed, her head tipping back as her voice twinkled through the air. “After everything that happened in Kirkwall … and after … you think I can’t handle myself?”_

_“On the contrary,” he said as he’d reached up to cup her cheek, “I think I fear for whoever or whatever might stand in your way. But that doesn’t mean an enemy can’t get lucky.”_

_Her smile lit up the room like nothing else could, the little crinkles around her eyes highlighting her mirth. “Then I’ll pray my luck endures … or that theirs ends.”_

_Anders had shaken his head at that. “You’re impossible.”_

_Leaning forward, she lightly brushed her lips against his as she told him, “And you love it,” before she pressed firmly and his mind muddled in the haze that followed. She was right, of course, he loved everything about her, including her stubborn, sometimes fool-hearty nature. And while she wouldn’t simply give up and leave the Inquisition to do all the heavy lifting, she gave him a little time before she left, time to enjoy each other once more before she left him … alone …_

Shaking his head, he couldn’t believe it. No, there was no way she’d simply left him like that. Nymeria wasn’t one to simply give up and accept her fate, not after everything she’d been through. She’d survived a Blight, the journey to a Free Marches city-state that didn’t even want to accept her, that was outright hostile to her … and yet she’d persevered, made a name for herself, defeated the Arishok in a duel, became Champion. It was rare that someone would rise from Lowtown to such a lofty position, but Nymeria Hawke was the kind of person that just made the impossible possible. It seemed out of the question, then, that she had even suspected that she might not return to him. That thought would have never entered her mind. Even the kiss she’d given him the next morning, before she’d set off, it was still full of hunger and desire, not the bitter regret that would have tainted it had she planned to not return at all … right?

With a sigh, he shook his head and returned to the letter once more.

_Shit, sorry about the smudges. I’d rewrite this, but … I don’t think I can write this again. And yet I have to, I have to tell her brother, and Isabella, and Merrill, and Aveline … and Fenris can read now, too, no need to just send a messenger. Hell, I even have to write Gamlen. Feynriel would probably want to know, though I’d have to figure out how to contact him in Tevinter, Keeper Marethari, Keran, Emile if I can track him down … so many people she touched, and now her life is reduced to a series of letters._

_Just seems unfair, I know. After everything she went through, to go out the way she did … I thought she might have been one of the few heroes that escaped her tale alive, but I guess I was wrong. This is one of the times I would have happily been wrong. It still seems surreal, you know. Without a body to burn or bury or what have you, it barely even seems as final as it is._

_I just wanted to let you know myself, and to let you know … I’m sorry, Anders. I know Nymeria meant a lot to you, even more than she meant to me. I tried to protect her one last time, but she slipped away from me, from us all. I wish I had more to say, but … what are you supposed to say for something like this? Even I don’t know._

_If you need anything, you know how to contact me._

_Varric._

The parchment crumbled in his hand as he brought it to his face, the tears rushing down his cheeks as sobs were freely torn from his throat. His chest heaved as the news truly settled in, as much as he didn’t wish it to. The rest of the world no longer existed as he heaved and gasped, his chest aching and hollow like something had been ripped out of it. Even Justice was blessedly quiet for the moment as he fell apart. While he’d always felt that their story would end in tragedy in some way, he’d always figured on it being _his_ death … not _hers._ Never hers. But once more, life seemed to make a mockery of him, even as in its spite it deprived the world of Nymeria’s light. Anders berated himself, even in his grief … _I should have gone with her, I shouldn’t have let her go on her own. Even if I had to travel at a distance, even if I had to conceal who I was, I should have gone._ All the possibilities, the should haves and could haves, they all coalesced and spun around in his mind, taunting him. _Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I should have been there to protect her, I should have been the one to be left in the fade. If anything, I would have deserved that fate far more than she did._

The guilt settled into his stomach as he leaned back in the chair, twisting his gut and making him feel sick. As he looked out the window of the hidden cabin he’d been camping out in, he realised just how surreal everything was. He almost felt he should have known when she fell into the fade, when she was left behind, when she died. Because surely she did. Even if she somehow survived the demon that Varric described, there was no escape. To be the only real thing in the fade … that was a nightmare all its own that sent a shudder up his spine. Even though he felt he had no more tears to shed, a few more still squeezed out at the burgeoning realisation of such a cruel fate for his lover. A longing tugged at his heart, wanting to sleep, to scour what he could of the fade in search of her, but deep down he knew it was for naught. Varric had to have had the time to return to this Skyhold that Nymeria had mentioned from Adamant in the Western Approach, and then write the letter and have it discreetly delivered to him. For her to survive that long in the raw fade was an insurmountable odd that even she couldn’t overcome.

He barely even realised that he had stood up until his knuckles brushed the windowsill, the setting sun shining directly in his eyes, making him squint. A terrible numbness and despair had settled into his very bones, making his limbs feel heavy as he leaned against the glass. He felt oddly conflicted about his next move and what he should or shouldn’t do … he had no reason to stay at this cabin, however, where would he go? And why should he keep running? It was Nymeria who convinced him to keep going after Kirkwall, to help in the shadows as a penance of sorts. But what use was that now? He’d only truly been able to keep going because of her, because she stayed with him. But now, without his anchor, he felt adrift and unsettled.

Anders stood there for hours, a long stretch that seemed to go on forever, until long after the sun had set and the glass of the window had cooled to touch. The only light was the smouldering coals in the fireplace, all that was left now of what he had kindled far earlier, before … before …

Before a few words scribbled across some parchment had stolen the true light from his life.

Mechanically, he stoked the flames and added a few more logs, though truly he didn’t even know why. What was the cold, after all, compared to the chill that wrapped around his heart, the dread that pooled in his stomach? The physical cold was but a minor inconvenience, but out of habit he rekindled the fire once more. Glancing at the small store of food that was left of what they’d brought with them and hoarded, his stomach turned, and he grimaced as he put away the iron poker. The mere sight of food revolted him, and instead he turned to the bed and made to curl up, as if bundling in a blanket and drifting off to sleep would change reality. It wouldn’t, he knew it wouldn’t, but what else was he to do? Not even the urgings of Justice could sway him for the time being, and as he pulled one of the pillows closer to him, he paused, tears stinging his eyes as he realised it was the one she’d used when they’d stowed away here together. Despite the intervening months, her scent still clung to it, and he likewise held it close and inhaled what he could as the choking sobs returned. It wouldn’t keep the smell of her forever, eventually it would fade and be just as gone as she was. But for the moment it didn’t matter, he held on to what little he had of her in that little cabin, tucked away in the middle of nowhere. He held on even as he started to drift, his mind recalling the last he’d seen of her before she left, when they shared that very bed, their bodies tangled together as they slept.

And for a moment, just the barest moment, he could have swore he felt her in his arms once again. He knew it wasn’t real, knew it was only a figment of his imagination, but he gave in all the same, pretending that she was there with him. He would have given the world to truly feel her in his arms, to feel her weight as he held her, her soft skin beneath his fingers, her dark hair tickling his nose. Enveloped in the ghost of her presence, he let slip the tears once more, crying out his despair into the darkened room around him. Just as he had broken his rule all those years ago, he was now left a broken man, his heart aching at the loss, throbbing in an intensity all its own. As the hours wore down and the night deepened, he stumbled under the heavy burden now placed upon him.

And some burdens are just too heavy to bear.


End file.
